We are the Dead
by amoenavi
Summary: AU Post-final battle ficlet. John and Isobel are the clean up crew. Inspired by John McCrae's poem: In Flanders Field.


**We are the Dead. Short days ago  
>we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,<br>loved and were loved, and now we lie  
>in Flanders Fields.<br>**  
>- John McCrae, <em>In Flanders Field<em>

-x-

He stays to help clean the blood of people he once knew off the walls.

Sheriff Forbes lies drained where Klaus killed her, a red smear making a halo around her head. Her eyes are open and empty, staring off at the body of her daughter. He leans down, slides them closed. Moves on to the next one.

Caroline's body is grayed, stake protruding from the place where her heart used to be. He will never cease to be begrudgingly impressed by the humanity possessed by the Forbes vampire. Shallow and selfish in life, a martyr in death. He drags her to lay beside the woman she died to protect. Liz and Caroline look peaceful together, a skewed mother-daughter portrait.

Carol Lockwood's heart lies across the room from her body. Her nose remains turned up even in death. _Once a bitch, always a bitch_, he thinks dully. Even so, he closes her eyes. Her body shouldn't have to see the torn remains of her only son. Tyler Lockwood is scattered, shredded. John considers leaving that for the others to retrieve but. He turns and begins to pick up the pieces for his daughter. Elena would want Tyler in one place.

He finishes gathering and wipes his hands on his jeans just in time to see Isobel licking her lips clean over a headless Jenna.

There's a moment of absolute shock and horror in which he _actually cannot believe _what he is seeing. It's gone too fast and then he can't contain the bile that wells up in his throat. It burns his mouth and fills him with an acrid taste, making his eyes water at the edges. He rushes over to the side of the church and heaves and heaves until he has nothing left to get rid of.

Isobel wrinkles her nose even as she wipes the remaining blood from her mouth. "It's not like I killed her, John," Isobel says, tone dry. Bored as ever even while surrounded by the carnage of the town she used to call home. She picks her way through the bodies, heels clacking across the floor. "I left her head for you," she continues once she gets closer. He blinks and has this thought, This can't be real life before raising a brow. She gestures toward the corner he hasn't reached yet, beyond the bodies of the remaining Fells who had stayed to fight.

John walks as carefully as he can, trying not to slip on the blood pools spotting the linoleum.

"Jenna," he says to her head. Her eyes are closed already but he still leans down to smooth out the lines of her face, scrunched up into her final flinch before Klaus ripped her head off. She looks like a porcelain doll, pale skin, faint lips, long black lashes. Her mascara has smudged underneath her eyes. He wipes it away. "Jenna," he repeats softly. His hand goes to stroke the side of her face unconsciously: her high cheekbones, the curve of her jaw. She looks nothing like the fierce Jenna Sommers who pursued him when she was still in high school and wouldn't take no for an answer. She doesn't even look like the softened Jenna Sommers who wrapped him in an empathetic hug at Gray and Miranda's funeral.

He looks behind him but Isobel is dragging the body of Bonnie Bennett next to Caroline's and Elena, Jeremy, and the remaining Salvatore are long gone. (It had only taken one long, drawn out wail of pain over the body of the other brother for the Salvatore to take Elena to the boardinghouse and leave them on clean-up duty. He had taken the leather jacket off of the body; he would send it to Elena to keep.)

Certain he is not being watched, he presses his lips to Jenna's forehead gently, ignoring the dark splotches of blood along her hairline. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "You weren't a Gilbert. This wasn't supposed to be your life."

He straightens quickly when he hears a quiet chuckle. Expecting to find Isobel laughing derisively at him, he turns.

Isobel is kneeling beside Alaric's body. From here, John would almost say that she looks like the old Isobel. The pre-vampires, pre-baby Isobel who smiled in cemeteries and laughed at ghost stories.

He looks away.

The Donovan boy lies in a corner. He could be asleep if not for the awkward angle of his neck. John makes his way through to get to him.

In Matt's right hand, a stake is captured. In his left, a vervain dart. His fingers curl around the pointed tip. John lets him have this final show of bravery.

When he turns back around, Isobel is finished with fresh tear tracks on her face. His eyes soften and she swipes viciously at the shows of weakness.

"It's alright to feel something, Isobel." He would offer her his hand if he didn't think she would bite it off.

She frowns minutely. "That's what got them killed." Brings a sleeve up to dab at the remainder of the moisture on her face as they make their way out of the church. "We're better."

"Gasoline?" he asks.

"Kerosene," she responds.

"It's all rotted wood anyway." Lights the match as Isobel blurs along the edges of his vision, a streak of black with a red tank. She returns to his side. He searches for a cigarette pack. Remembers that he didn't take one to the final battle.

"Why bother, John," she's watching him curiously. "Everyone who would suspect something is dead."

He tries to smirk then, equal parts nostalgic and pained. "Right. The Founder's Council has officially disbanded."

She places her hand on his arm in an uncharacteristically comforting gesture. He almost flinches away. "Don't pout, you know this town. History always repeats."

John feels the blood on his hands, caked on his forehead, his neck's puncture wounds. "You think this will?"

She's silent for a moment before she slowly turns her head back to the old church. "Let it burn, Johnny."

He flicks a new match into the kerosene. It catches immediately and soon, fingers of red and yellow lick at the blue blue sky. He suppresses a sigh and turns toward her.

"I'll follow your lead, Izzy."

He holds onto Isobel's hand as they turn their back on the flames.

-x-


End file.
